Page 56 of Breaking the Ice

He hadn’t pulled away from his touch. Not once.

“It’s funny how the season feels endless right now. Perfect, all stretched out in front of us,” Gavin mused quietly.

“But by the time we hit January, it’ll only feel like an endless grind?” Zach smiled. “Yeah.”

He loved both feelings, actually. The excited anticipation when anything felt possible and even the point where it felt like almost too much, like if he had to go to another game, he was going to scream. Terrible, almost, but in the best possible way. Like someone touching him after he’d just come.

“Like you said, winning feels better than losing,” Gavin said.

“The start of a season’s never felt like this before, though.” Zach knew why. It was his crush, too many feelings crammed into too small of a space, and how they overflowed everywhere.

“For me either.” Gavin glanced over at him now. “Probably because I haven’t done it in so long.”

Zach wanted to argue, to tell him that wasn’t why at all. That it washim. That it was him and Zach together, that was making every moment feel so precious, like that breathless split second before they swan dived right off the cliff into the unknown.

It was supposed to be scary—terrifying, even—but it didn’t feel that way with Gavin. It just felt inevitable, and not like everything closing or anything ending, but instead like the world was opening up. A thousand different possibilities, with one single golden thread of commonality holding them together.

Him and Gavin,together.

But Zach wasn’t stupid; he couldn’t say any of that shit.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

Gavin tipped his head back and looked up at the sky. “Maybe it’s how good I think this team could be.”

With Gavin not looking at him, Zach could look his fill without any embarrassment. Without any guilt. And he did, eyes glued to Gavin’s face. To his lips.

God, he wanted to kiss him so bad.

He’d always wanted to. Even back in college, when he’d been eighteen and enjoying that first heady freedom, getting to make out with guys at frat parties and hook up after, he’d thought about Gavin way too much.

More than he probably should’ve.

And now? It was so much worse, a clamor in his blood, making his hands tremble.

“We’re going to do great things,” Gavin kept talking. Like Zach wasn’t a hair trigger away from saying fuck it, grabbing Gavin’s face between his hands, and not letting him get away from him this time.

But then Zach remembered Hayes sayinghis big widower freakout, and Zach couldn’t do it.

He should move away. Put some space between them, so he was no longer tempted.

Before he could, Gavin’s head tipped back down and then his face was right there, catching Zach right in the act.

And suddenly,God, they were right back in that same moment, when they’d been on the couch in Gavin’s cabin.

Gavin was staring at Zach’s mouth, his own dropped open a little. It was dark but Zach swore he could see the pink of his tongue just resting there, and he felt lightheaded. With desire. With the force it took to hold himself back.

“Zach,” Gavin murmured, and then his hand was curling around Zach’s shoulder, and he was hyperventilating, because Gavin was leaning in and this was everything he’d ever fucking wanted, condensed into a single endless moment, flawless like a diamond.

Gavin’s fingers dug into his shoulder, and he tugged him another inch closer until they were pressed together.

He wanted to do a cheer and yell,it’s finally happening, it’s finally happening, but if he did that, he’d have to move, andthere was no way he could do that. He was transfixed, frozen right in place.

Waiting.

Nervously, he licked his lips, wondering how long Gavin would make him wait.

Too long apparently.